Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (23 page)

Reed sp
eaks
to Anya in Angel, attemptin’
a smile,
but she frowns
before answerin’ him. Pointin’
to th
e window behind him, Anya waits
u
ntil Reed and Evie both glance
over t
heir shoulders before she swipes a candlestick from the table
. Pullin’
it into he
r lap under the table, she stills when they turn back ‘
round.

“Did she just
take a candlestick?” Reed asks
me.

“Yup,” I reply
. “What
did
she say to get
you
to turn away?” I inquire
.

“I asked her if she had just arrived on Earth.
She said she had and that she’
s not used to the
cold or the snow,” Reed replies
.

A small smile creeps
to the corners of my
mouth, until I think
that she might be afraid and that
’s why she took the candlestick. Maybe she’s think
in’
‘bout usin’ it
as a weapon to defend
herself. Impulsively, I reach for her hand beneath
the table. Startled, she
flinches
a little, her face palin’
before she
realize
s what I’m doin’
. Her cold fingers squee
ze mine tight, and I
feel her hand tremble
a little.

“Maybe this would be better if it seems like
I
’m askin’ the questions and you’
re
translatin’ it,” I
say
, lookin’ at Anya and seein’
her green
eyes watchin’ me.

Reed says somethin’
to her in Angel
and Anya no
ds
, turn
in’ her attention to me. As I study
her green eyes, they soften
. “Uhh,” I say
, findin’ it hard to think with
her starin’ at me, “w
hy are you
here?”

Reed translates this for
Anya
. She listens and then she shrugs.
Her voice is gentle as she answers, like she’s speakin’ just to me
.

Reed sa
ys, “She said she had to come—
she was wo
rried about you.”

My eyebrows rise in question.

Reed listens
to Anya
as she speaks
again.

“She said that she wasn’t supposed to be involved, but she has friends that heard some very distur
bing things, so…she had to come,
”
Reed says with some surprise.

I frown.
“Do
you
know what she’s talkin’ about
,
Reed?” I ask in confusion
. “S
he’s havin’ me watched?”

“Yes,” Reed says
, sittin’ back and lookin’ really interested now.
“We should ask her
what she heard about you.”

“Okay, ask,” I agree
.

Reed asks the question in Angel.

Anya answers him
.

Reed’s expression turns incredulous.
“She said you didn’t come back. You were suppo
sed to come back, but you didn’t,
”
he murmurs.

“When was I
supposed to come back?” I ask
, seein
’ pain in Anya’s
eyes
.

Watchin’ Anya’s face, it falls when Reed poses the question. She glances back at me and says
, “
Ruse-el stay Ev-ie
. Very cry.”

Reed says somethin’ to her.

“Very sad,
”
she amends.

Reed leans
forward then, sp
eakin’
in a torrent of Angelic words, h
is face intense.

Anya replies and Reed leans
back in his chair, like he’s shocked.

Reed says
, “You were supposed to die
,
Russell…in the convenience store
in Crestwood
. That was your plan.”

“WHAT!” I shout
at him.

“Everything shifted when Evie healed you
…when you agreed to stay
,” Reed
says
,
lookin’ at me and somethin
’
in me know
s
he’s as freaked out
as I am.

“Anya,” Reed
says
, speakin’
to her in Angel. Hearin’ her respond
to Reed’s questions, he has a “holy crap”
look on his face. “She’s not suppos
ed to be here, Russell,” he says
.

“Whadda
ya
mean, like here in Torun or l
ike here here…on
Earth?
” I question
.

“Here here,” Reed
replies
. “She heard bad things…she heard about the
Gancanagh. She was afraid that they would
force you to give up
your soul and
then you would
never come back…to her.”

“Come back to her?” I ask
. A
drenaline course
s
through me.
“Why wo
uld I come back to her?” I look
at Evie to see how she’s ta
kin’ all this. She’s
absolutely still, but all the hair is standin’ straight up on her arms.
“Is she really my
a
spire
?” I ask
Reed. H
is face go
es
blank, just like it does when he’s goin’ into battle.

“What
did you say, Russell?” Reed murmurs
, like he
’s sure that he
didn’t hear me.

“Ask her if she’s my
aspire
,” I say
, tryin’ not to
freak out.

Reed poses the question
to Anya.

We
watch
as she
pull
s
aside her
t-shirt and then the black bodysuit
, exposin’
a bindin’ mark above her heart that looks a lot like my wings. Reed
reaches
for the other candlestick on the tabl
e. H
e crushes
it into a pebble in a fracti
on of a second. Then
,
Reed begins
laughin’
like it’s the best joke he’s ever heard
.

Reed kisses
Red’s forehead, before turnin’ to me and sayin
’
, “Russell, meet your
aspire
, Anya!”

“HOW?” I shout at him, feelin’ off-
kilter and strangely hurt. “I don’t have any marks on me.”

“You wou
ldn’t, would you?” Reed asks
, grinnin’
. “You’re on a mission and
you
we
re reborn as Russell. Russell i
s human
—
y
ou have
always
been
human
. Anya,” he says
, speakin’
to Anya in Angel.

She replies to his question.

Reed nods
,
grinnin’. “Anya said
her mark was different;
it
used to reflect the image of your soul,
but when you changed, it changed, too.”

“And I don’t have one
‘cuz I’m on a mission?” I ask
quickly
, tryin’ to understand
.

His brows knit together as he
processes my question. He speaks
to Anya
.

Her
eyes cloud with worry and she looks really sad as she answers him
.

Reed frowns. “Maybe,” Reed says
. “Nothing is certain, Anya said. This is a mission that’s is ever evolving. If you were to lose your soul to Sheol, she
would be released from the vow. T
hat was the stipulation you made before coming here.”

“AHH, HELL, REED!” I yell at him
,
boltin’ to my feet and
puttin’ my hand through my hair. “IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE JUST ONE THING MAKE SENSE IN ALL THIS?
”

“It soun
ds like you, Russell,” Evie says
quietly from her seat.

I turn on her in anger.
“What sounds like me? Throwin’ aside the love of ALL my lives for someone else? Or marr
y
in’ someone and
not comin’ back to her?” I seethe
, lettin’ Red have it.

Red doesn’t flinch.
“Accepting a mission to protect me, staying to protect me
even though you planned to go back
, and worrying more about having someone you love suffer because you might not be able to come back to her so you gave her an out, just in case…it sou
nds like you, Russell,” she says
again quietly.

Anya speaks
then to Reed, her voice
completely unmusical. Gesturin’
to Evie, with
a flick of her wrist she scowls
at her like she hates her. Evie, not und
erstandin’ much more than me, si
t
s
back a little in her seat. Reed’s face is blank again, but he’s listenin’ to Anya like she spillin’ the secrets of the universe.

“What?” I ask
, leanin’
both my fists on the table
when Anya i
s done talkin’.

Reed looks grim,
and he’s
not answerin’ me. Gettin
’ up from his seat
, Reed says
quietly, “I’ll go
take care of the corpses upstairs. There are bedrooms on this floor, if you want to c
lean up and rest. Love,” he adds
,
takin’ Evie’s hand, he gestures
toward the door, “you should lie
down. You look pale.”

“I’m fin
e. What did Anya say?” Evie asks
, lookin’
concerned
and not
gettin
’ up from her seat
.

Reed’s jaw tenses
; h
e looks like someone punched him in the stomach. “She’s upset. She just transitioned from Paradise. She needs our support…
she’s like a child here…she d
oesn’t know how things work
.”

“Tel
l her to leave, Reed,” I say
in a quiet tone. “She’s not supposed to be here, so tell her to go back.”

“I can’t,” Reed says
, watchin’ me.

I scowl.
“What do you
mean you
can’t?” I ask
, feelin’
anger risin’ in me again.

“She
can’t, I should say,” he replies
. “She left on her own. She’ll have to be called back, just like the rest of us, Russell.”

“So, why haven’t th
ey called her back?” I ask
.

“Maybe they approve.
She has a right to protect her
aspire
. Maybe they believe she can help us
,” he says
softly.

“Or maybe, it will
just get her killed,” I reply
. “She
doesn’t have a soul—
no do over
s for her. She’s not trained
to fight
like you, is she? That makes her a liability, not an asset.”

“Yes,” Reed agrees, watchin’ me close
.

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITIN’ FOR ME TO D
O, REED?” I shout at him. Evie, jumps
, lookin’ stressed ‘cuz I’m yellin’ at him.

“I’m waiting for some spark of rec
ognition from you,” Reed replies
. “Something that will assure me that what Anya believes is wrong.”

“Wha
t does she believe?” I counter
, rubbin’ my brow wearily.

“She thinks that Evie agreed to this mission to tear you away from Anya…
to get you back,” he replies
coldly.